A Methodological Triangulation as a Study Method

Traditionally a role of knowledge has been understood in the manner of a description. In practice, a descriptive science has led to the treatment of knowledge as an instrument in pursuing the scientific ideals and progress. Such instrumentalist perception highlights the knowledge as a practice which make a progress possible.

This positivist or foundationalist approach assumes that there exist multiple universal foundations which are the same for every human-being. These universal foundations are indivisible and form the prerequisites for a social life. Accordingly, this layout makes possible a categorical judgment over the social acts as right or wrong and bad or good, based on these foundations.

Conversely, a prescriptive science, which this study acknowledges, appears as instructional; it can be translated as an explanatory or an understanding study approach. In short, it strives to find directional norms for a human effort. In this outlook, the social process of knowing

17 gets a primary attention. Practically, this means that a possession of knowledge within the social and cultural structures and intercultural communication is in the core of a scientific interest.

Where a hermeneutic constructivism function as an ontological background for the study, a phenomenology can be said to serve an epistemological bond structure. Accordingly, a practical scientific adaptation can be found from the same thematic layout: A phenomenological research lean on a prescriptive study approach.

In the context of this study, a prescriptive study approach refers to a dialogical deduction. A dialogical deduction entails a necessity for a candid dialog with an opposite party which means that there shouldn’t be a pre-decided theoretical or methodological framework; not even data gathering should be decided too strictly. These phenomenological ideals form the guidelines for the study even though they can’t be followed precisely in this context. This is so because such the study would be too broad for the purposes of master’s thesis.

Accordingly, the study carries out a dialogical deduction in accordance with an autoethnography. An autoethnography is used in terms of the critical research tradition which put under question the conventional social and political structures. In accordance with the Marxist tradition, this means primarily a criticism toward the ideologically colored social reality i.e. power structures which are seen behind an oppression.

In purpose to reveal these ideologically charged structures, an autoethnography demand a dialog with target of a study which is, in this case, the Alaskan Inupiat. The idea is to give them a word about their cultural and personal experiences i.e. how they understand reality and what kind of symbols they have in regard of cultural and intercultural communication.

A vital part of this study method is that a scientist yields to a personal dialog with emerging viewpoints. In regard of this study, this means the dialog between the Western, modern culture as I understand it and the symbolization of the culture of the Inupiat. The idea is that as

18 part of the western cultural heritage, I represent the present paradigm of internationalism as an ideology.

In other words, with this initial setting, I’m pursuing an intercultural dialog which would help to reveal oppressive structures between internationalism and indigeneity where the Alaskan Inupiat are a part of. This comparative study layout leads back to a phenomenography as a part of phenomenological research trend. Due to the chosen narrative approach this means in practice that I’ll consider the symbolization of the reality through the storytelling tradition which the Alaskan Inupiat have adopted. This consideration will be done from the viewpoint of the western narrative tradition. The idea follows the scientific model of a narrative explanation.

This type of explanation assumes an amount of imagination from a scientist which might sound as pseudoscience. Instead, as a part of the narrative explanation, the imagination is used to combine multiple phenomena or significations under the same theoretical model. In this study, this happens by means of the frame analysis which is applied from the viewpoint of rhetorical criticism. This study method base on the idea that reality is framed such a way that it encourages to the certain interpretations about the reality.

Thus, this study begins from the assumption that this ‘framing effect’ is unconscious and without any politically or socially oriented motives. The intention is on the consideration of compatibility of cultural meanings conveyed by storytelling. For example, a rhetorical point of view assumes that the framing is a rhetorical act which seems to suggest that the best suitable study method is a narrative criticism.

A narrative criticism is the application of a rhetorical criticism which focus on the meanings conveyed by storytelling. The attention is drawn to a setting, characters, a narrator, events, temporal relations, causal relations, an audience, and a theme of narratives. The purpose of these priorities is to understand the structure which they offer for the organization of the

19 human experience. This study assumes that this works as a background for cultural and intercultural communication.

Eventually, I’ll compare the narratives, which are resulted from the study, to the Western cultural tradition which can be said to give the present internationalization paradigm its characteristics. This comparison will be based on the work of the Arctic Social Indicators (ASI)-working group. The ASI is a follow-up of the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR) seeking to sketch indicators for a measurement of quality of social well-being in the Arctic.

Basically, this means that the criteria for the above mentioned comparison is in accordance of the principles sketched by the ASI-working group. These criteria are 1) Fate control or the ability to guide one’s own destiny 2) Cultural integrity or belonging to a viable local culture 3) Contact with nature or interacting closely with the natural world 4) Education 5) Material well-being 6) Health/demography. Thus, this study seeks for narration especially on these areas of social life.